Searchable electronic catalogs are commonly used in support of electronic commerce and purchasing functions. These electronic catalogs typically are rendered into databases, HTML page collections and other electronic means. Individual purchaser or marketplace system installations benefit by maintaining a single catalog rather than several different catalogs from several different sources. With multiple catalogs, for example, an office supply procurement system may contain office supply catalogs from several different office supply vendors or manufacturers. Some of the catalogs may describe identical items such as a blue pen while each catalog will likely describe similar but different items, such as different makes of blue pens. By combining the catalogs into a single catalog, desired items can be found and compared more quickly and easily than with multiple catalogs.
Unfortunately, different purchaser and marketplace installations have different specifications for a combined electronic catalog. These specifications arise from differences in languages and measuring, from regional legal requirements, from needs in the particular industry or marketplace or from preferences of the catalog user. Different preferences in categorizing items also create different requirements. In order to satisfy the differing needs of purchasers, marketplaces and suppliers different catalogs in different formats must be provided. The proliferation of different catalogs requires that each different catalog be separately maintained with revisions, updates, new items and restructuring. The present invention allows a single reference catalog to be used to maintain many different catalogs in many different formats. The reference catalog simplifies updates and revisions since all maintenance can be performed on a single catalog. It is consistently updated and maintained and these updates and revisions are then applied to each of the different purchaser, marketplace and supplier catalogs. The updates can include both changes in the structure and organization of the catalog as well as product and service information.